News

It’s official! As of 1 July 2016, we will be the Department of African Cultural Studies. We have taught African languages, literature, linguistics, and oral traditions for 50 years. As we celebrated a half-century of …

Congrats to graduate students and Arabic teaching assistants Bilal Humeidan, Said Hannouchi, and Sami Lamine! All three of them were selected as Honored Instructors by University Housing residents for Fall 2015.

Kazeem Sanuth, an alumnus of our MA program, is now a doctoral student in Second Language Acquisition, still here at UW-Madison, and recently sent news to SLA’s newsletter, Second Language Acquisition News Gazetee (SLANG). Read …

Marci Kunene, wife of Professor Emeritus Daniel Kunene, wrote to the department to share news of their recent travels. She says, “My husband, at age 92, continues to amaze me. After several years of not …

“Swahili was a gateway to a lifelong engagement with people, communities, languages, cultures, and ideas that have enriched my life myriad ways. My knowledge of African languages has allowed me to engage in conversations, to …

“Swahili inspired me to study abroad in Kenya for five months which continues to be one of the most amazing and influential experiences I’ve had to date. Not only was living in Kenya life-changing, but …

Alumna Sofia Samatar has a powerful new piece called “Skin Feeling” in The New Inquiry. “As a black academic, part of a tiny minority, I often feel hypervisible, exposed. Crossing a courtyard among the white …

Ruth Ibbi and Oladipo Olagbenro of Nigeria and Ayoti Simms of Kenya have been awarded Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) Program grants to serve as teaching assistants in Hausa, Yoruba, and Swahili (respectively) and take courses at University of Wisconsin-Madison for academic year 2015-16. While in the United States, Ibbi, Olagbenro, and Simms will share their languages and cultures with U.S. communities to inspire Americans to travel and study overseas, and make U.S. citizens better prepared to engage with businesses, governments, and organizations abroad.

Image caption: Alumna Meg Skinner talks with Professor Dustin Cowell at the 50th Anniversary Alumni Weekend Alumna Meg Skinner invites you to join her and family for a Memorial Service/Celebration of life for the late …